To Kendra on her Birthday

If memory serves me right, it was a Wednesday, trapped between the joy of Palm Sunday and the sorrow of Good Friday. I traveled one hour and a half to see you come into this world, and got there in the nick of time. (Well thank your mother as always, with her rushes, no one thought a first timer would deliver so quickly!!!) Anyhoo, I got to the hospital wing as they brought you out. I must say, and I'm not lying, that you were the most beautiful baby I've ever seen. Those brown eyes of yours were open wide, wanting it all, welcoming the world as much as it welcomed you.

You are the only person I ever wrote a poem for. You are made after my own heart and I've certainly got a kick of getting you to recite Poe and Blake at 3 years old. While most people were doing "Twinkle Twinkle," you kept going "Tyger, Tyger"... the point is, I am grateful to God and your mother for whatever hand I've had in your life. I told you once, since I don't have any of my own, TAG KIDDO, YOU ARE IT!!!!

So, to Cookie, the Great Ken Ken, our own Private Rockstar and the Little Monster we all know and love, Happy B-Day. You are officially a teen!!!!

Keep it up, keep working for those dreams, love always and many many blessings,

Lynnette

Something funny happened on my way through Bruce B. Downs

The following, as most of my ramblings is based on a true story, the embellishments are all mine as well, although it is not intended to count as short fiction.

I was going back home after a long day at work. Though I must not make boast of my little vices, I was all over the place, with phone and radio and thoughts for the weekend while trying to keep alert for that space of consciousness that will spare me half a second to react to road peril.

Somewhere between making an overnight deposit and assuring myself via Flixter that Clash of the Titans was not set for this week's release, something made me wind down and slow my steady 65 mph pace.

Thinking back, I shouldn't have been as distracted as I was by what I saw, after all, I live in a place called Land O' Lakes. There's bodies of water everywhere. Bodies of water and patches of wild.Even in a matter of 24 hours when it rains as hard and as long as it did yesterday, a simple puddle will be exalted, you know, cause puddles dream too.

Anyhoo, as I said there was a vast, extension of water that was not there yesterday, right in front of a construction site. There she stood, completely out of place, walking betwen the still waters and discarded timber and trash. She was no more than a girl , eighteen to early twenties perhaps. I cannot say wheter or not she was beautiful because I could not see her face. She was thin and tall and her hair was long and straight and dusty blond. Although I didnt get to see them, I bet her eyes were cold and blue.

I tried to concentrate on her, blocking both the traffic and Michael Hutchence, dead and gone for over ten years who was trying to tell me that we all have wings but some of us just don't know why, and as everything flashed before me: people and song and patch of wild and long haired girl holding to her long sleeve black sweater as to dear life, it crossed my mind that I was not seeing someone, but something.

As a matter of seconds, as she moved the sky went from weak blue to gray, to silver streaked purple, I held my breath with the unmistaken feeling that I was in the presence of something that is bigger than I. It happens like that with me, and I know God forgives me when sometimes I become a little pagan and I sing a little song to the wind and the long, cold, starry nights.

The DJ mentioned not to forget to spring forward tonite, he whined a scripted grievance about loosing an hour of sleep and announced the next song. And I said, thanks, and I'll see you next year, in the meantime, your younger sibling will come, and take your place and bring light and life to us all...

Mad Hatters and other matters

It seems as of late I've been doing nothing but watch movies. Anyhooo... got around to see Alice in Wonderland in 3D. I understand why this movie is either a hit or miss and will divide critics and audiences alike. Haters will conjure their own failed expectations, as far as myself, I left the theater loving a tale that I didn't care for as much as I should have when I was a child.

First time I really, really read a decent bit of Alice in Wonderland I was in college, well in my 20's, trying to get a grip of Literary Nonsense in the 19th Century... I breezed through it as I did through Chomsky and his colorless green ideas, if you catch my drift. The funny thing is that back then, as a twenty something i was able to make connections that I just couldn't figure out as a child, and I came to the realization (back then I thought it was my great stroke of genius) that the original story with it's excessive meanings, formal discourses and hyperboles was not meant to be a children's story. Alas, I was not alone, apparently Tim Burton thought the same...

I don't know if it is because I just had a birthday, but lately I have been thinking about my own childhood and how adulthood and experience distorts memories or creates fears that were not there before. Sometimes things are sacrificed in the altar of maturity, things no one should ever part with: imagination, true bravery, fearlessness and simple faith.

Alice has grown, and as expected, she had dismissed it all as a dream, until one day she falls through a hole again and visits a world she thought forgotten. It is there she learns that she is not the only girl to ever fall through, yet the only one crazy enough to make sense out of madness.

I loved the introductory arc, as she faces friends and fiends from the past and tries to fit them into what is meant to be the frame of mind of a Victorian Era young lady. I loved the sense of self discovery and fear of not fitting in what she though was the world she belong to while slipping deeper and deeper into places she initially reacted against.

The following will make no sense....

For a child who once was fearless, or perhaps in the verge of madness (watch out for the spinster aunt as Burton indicates in his adaptation that Alice could have some genetic disposition to buy real state in Wonderland) the place she visited as a child was full of magic and adventure. As an adult, it is a nightmare from where she constantly asks to wake up until she notices it's time to nut up or shut up... (yes I liked Zombieland as well).

For those who wonder where did the fun go... it is meant to be this way. After all is it a process of discovery and those are never fun filled. After years of automated waking up, heating the tea, going out to make some money at a corporate job, going back home and catching movies in the weekends, Alice finds a caterpillar that tells her "you are not Alice." Of course the woman will insist saying she is, but deep inside she knows she is but a subject with a high table of expectations and a very well traced path before her, and that was one rabbit hole she should have never fallen through. Sorry my dear, but when your boss gives you an order, you just paint the roses red without hesitation, if you know what I mean.

It takes her a lot of pain and agony to break from the design and believe in herself, unfortunately, we are not given the chance to see what Alice will do with her second chance as we are offered but a glimpse of her real world plans. Second chances, after all, like the blue caterpillar said, might come in disguised as painful, scary matamorphoses, but they might as well lead you to another life, and it's a chance worth taking. Would it be much to wish for a sequel? For Alice to return perhaps in her 40's... I believe Ebert proposed it and I an rallying behind him :)

There were just a couple of things that I hated... after all the fireworks and stunts AVATAR had to offer the 3D in Alice was bland in comparison. It is the type of 3D effect that offers depth instead of jumping out of the screen, and it is understandable as Burton relied a lot on the eyes of certain characters, like the Hatter or Chesire Cat.

Stop>>>>> I just remembered. Let's sing an Ode to Johnny Depp, who can be anyone and do anything and not repeat himself. His weirdly dilated pupils indicative of massive brain damage and impressive carrot top could have reduced any other actor to a caricature, but he pulled it through!!!!... Okay, I'll keep the hating now, it's but a little bit, though...

Crispin Glover!!!!! The man's a freak by himself, let him be!!!! I hated that they animated his body with a CGI technique that made him look paper thin (like the card he is meant to represent) but damn, it took so much away, completely distracting and unnecessary.

All in all it was a better experience than anything I've seen this year, including Frigging Avatar, that will probably sweep the Oscars anyway... Sheez is cold in here, gotta go now.

The Quote:

The hatter: Have I gone mad?

Alice: I'm afraid you are completely bonkers, but let me tell you a secret, all the best people are...